Better Regulation - Draft Action 1: Help make waste legislation support the circular economy in cities

Bottleneck to be addressed

As soon as products or materials are defined as waste, a set of regulatory measures apply to protect human health and the environment against any harm from those products and materials. These regulations make it difficult, if not impossible to redirect waste fractions back into the economic cycle for re-use or recycling.

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Objective

The objective of the action is to support the transition from waste management to resource management with improved (application of) waste legislation, including definitions of waste and beginning of waste/end of waste criteria. Until now end-of-waste criteria have been set for only a very limited number of materials and the process for developing end-of-waste criteria for new products and materials will be quite complex and time consuming. An option to better meet the requirements of circular economy could be to keep products and materials that are fit for re-use and recycling, out of the waste stream in the first place. That way they will not be subject to unnecessary limitations that arise from the waste status. At the same time this may allow for a more friendly and competitive market environment for secondary resources, from which the urban economy will benefit in terms of new economic activity and employment.

Output

Recommendations for a more substantial change in regulations and/or its application. This would result in a proposal for setting up a regulatory framework that better fits the requirements of using secondary resources in the context of a circular economy. An element of this new framework could be the introduction of so-called “beginning of waste” criteria.

Comments

It’s a good idea but it arrives too late in the discussions of the revision of the Waste Framework Directive.

The additional category between non-waste and waste (re-fuse) is a great idea because once products or materials are defined as waste, it is difficult to redirect waste fractions back into economic cycle for re-use or recycling.

In France, this idea is applied in local recycling centres, where a “re-use zone” takes in products and materials not defined as “waste” by their possessor.